A windrower typically consists of a self-propelled tractor or similar vehicle, and a cutting mechanism which is either towed or carried by the tractor. The cutting mechanism is typically referred to as a header, and is supported on the windrower by forwardly projecting arms. The current practice in agriculture is to cut a relatively wide swath of the crop within a range of anywhere between 10 and 19 or more feet in width, and then consolidate the crop into a narrower, substantially continuous windrow, in which form the crop is left to dry in the field until the moisture content has been reduced to a value suitable for subsequent harvesting operations, such as chopping or baling.
To improve the current harvesting practice, efforts have been made to combine multiple windrows together as they are being mowed. This improvement eliminates an intermediate raking operation and also reduces the number of required passes for subsequent harvesting operations (e.g., chopping and baling). With the advent of higher capacity forage harvesters and balers, the ability to merge windrows is becoming a more desirable practice. Windrow merging attachments have, thus, become more prevalent on harvesting machines. Typically, mergers include a conveyor belt for receiving crop from the header and directing the crop laterally for discharge alongside the windrower.
By carefully planning the passes made by the windrower across the field, mergers can be used to create triple windrows. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 7,028,459 (Lohrentz et al.) discloses a method for creating a triple windrow by making three consecutive harvesting passes across the field, with the consecutive passes being made in alternating directions across the field. Unfortunately, such a methodology significantly reduces the amount of drying time available to the windrows formed via the first and second consecutive passes prior to the third windrow being deposited on top of the previous windrows daring the final harvesting pass. Moreover, by making three consecutive passes across portions of the field that are immediately adjacent to one another, the windrower is required to make very sharp turns, thereby increasing the likelihood of crop scuffing as the windrower is being turned around at the edge of the field to make its next pass.
Accordingly, an improved method for creating merged triple windrows would be welcomed in the technology.